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Just a country girl...
Mar. 31st, 2002 11:18 pmSo it wasn't that bad after all. In fact that night was just what I needed. I waited at the appointed place where I was supposed to meet the master chief's daughter for about an hour, all the time cowering in the corners of the place because I was afraid that the kids who told me about their friend's band would see me. And I would have to tell them that the band was horrible. I am compulsively honest. And so after an hour of alternating between skulking and poking my head around to look for this vision I had an ersatz date with I decided it was time to make a run for it. I had put in my time and could honestly say that I put in the effort to find her if questioned.
And even though I really wasn't in the mood to be out on the town, I found myself in the usual watering hole before I realized that I wasn't headed back to the ship. Happy to be climbing back into a cold mug of Bass, reading the newspaper and picking the least offensive songs on the juke box. Then a flouncy blonde came in and set herself down right next to me when there were stools all around at seven thirty in the PM. I was thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe she was sitting down next to me because she saw something that made her want to talk...Not that I wanted to talk because I wanted to bed a stranger, but because I wanted to feel like there is still something to my grizzled earthly form that would make an attractive stranger want to make my acquaintance. But then, suddenly, she took her drink away and sat down next to an eighty year old who sits at the end of the bar every night and started to talk about how her AA meeting was that night. And I figured that that last bit of Je ne sais quoi had been leeched out of my skin by the salt and the grease and the booze and the nicotine because, certainly, if there was ever a "type" of woman who would be attracted to me it would be a forty seven year-old who rushes into the bar as soon as she is done twelve-stepping for the evening. Resigned to another miserable dreary lonely night of bloating myself with too much beer and a twist of self serving melancholia I resolved to leave as soon as I finished my beer.
And then. And then the surf child came in (hadn't seen him since I returned from New Orleans) and slithered his arms around the blonde's waist. She kissed him. On the mouth. And shortly there after Surf Child noticed me and broke away from drunken blonde. When he approached me she screeched "you know HIM?" Which I ignored as best I could, the subtle way she had snubbed me had already abraded my ego enough for one night. And surf child shot back some witty banter about how I am the most powerful man on the ship and how she should, nay how everybody in the bar should behold the glory that is Max Love! Flattered a mite by his disingenuous puffing on me arse I decided to buy him a beer and catch up on ship's gossip. After a couple, it was time to leave and I stopped to be introduced to drunken blonde. When she told me that she was sorry that she had moved away from me so abruptly but that "I was going to talk to you, but you were just SO into your PAPER! I figured that you must be really DEPRESSED, and I can't take on another charity case right now..." I suppose the real lesson is that chicks don't dig well-read drunks, but I took that as tacit endorsement of my suspicions about my aura. And so I set out to the ship with a bitter taste on my tongue that had less to do with the brand of beer I was drinking, and more to do with the quality of bile churning my guts.
And so. And so I was almost ship-side when the call came in from Blueberry that he was with master chief and his wife and his daughter and they had been waiting fer hours and why the hell wasn't I there? Before I could even digest who was on the line, there was her voice, asking ever so delicately to come take her away from her parents...
So I turned my ass around and headed right on back to the bar where they were listening to that horrid band play covers of jimmy buffet and Otis Redding. Walked up the steps and sat down with the master chief & wife & blueberry (master chief and blueberry are old navy buddies) and I saw the daughter, Supa-K, dancing with a handsome, well built young man. A handsome, well built young man who happened to strike me as quite gay. But then she sat down and he came over with his # and because I felt crushed I realized it was probably for the best because if she wanted to hang out with me I would just make an ass of myself anyway. I have forgotten how to relate to anyone who isn?t part of the crew. I know this. The five of us sat for some time telling jokes and sea stories, slurping strong frozen drinks before supa-k asked to use my phone to call that guy. "I want to go out dancing" she announced. And the compaction of my soul was that much more profound. The only reason that I had headed back out was to meet her, to talk to her, to be in the presence of something beautiful and soft for a few hours to take the edge off of boat life and the attendant brooding alone in the bar.
Next thing I know she comes back to the bar and announces that the guy and his boyfriend were coming to pick her up and bring her to a gay bar to go dancing. And why don't I come with? That last part started a thousand hamsters on a thousand wheels in my brain. Having spent a lot of time in gay bars with my friends back home I had no personal problems with escorting her...But what would Master Chief and blueberry think? "Them Homos" are not highly regarded among merchant marines (but if my shipmates only knew how many shipmates on this boat are queer...) Would they start nasty roumors about me? Would master chief be happy to see his daughter escorted by a shipmate instead of having he out with two strangers? would he think that I was going to take advantage? and on. and on.
I after quick consideration of my thoughts, I told her that I would love to go, if it was OK with her dad. I could see the honest relief in his eyes when he said he would "feel much better about her going out" with me around.
And so, before I knew it I was in an entire gay compound. A hotel out on 66th street completely devoted to being a homosexual resort. The drag show on the courtyard, the bawdy dyke piano bar, the leather bar, the dance club. Of course, being around so many well groomed, buff, fashionable men made me suck in my beer gut and tuck in my shirt as vanity is contagious sometimes. I know I couldn?t pass as gay in an environment like that, I just didn?t want to have people tittering about ?that straight guy over there? if you know what I mean.
And so we danced, the four of us. then the two of us. Then they were back from whatever they were doing and they drove us to the hotel where she was staying. And Supa-K and I talked, for hours. I held her feet in my hands. She nuzzled me with her head. She curled up in my arms. And true to my word, despite a few inadvertent pecks on the top of her head, I didn't make a pass at her, though I know my desire was pungent and hung around my body like the smell of fish guts around a troller (although, at one point, in the club, I did cup one perfect cheek of her derrič²„ out of sheer habit when my arm was around her waist. I didn't even realize what I had done until she reciprocated?)
And so we talked, and she proved herself to be well read and intelligent and ambitious and adventurous and worldly, though she has seen little outside of her Missouri home. And I absolutely went to jelly when she said that ?I?m just a country girl you know.? And I knew better than to admit to myself that I had already fell for her the way you fall for someone before you even know what love really is all about.
And she, weather she was simply being nice and having a good ol' 21 year-old time with me, or if she felt something for me is irrelevant. The fact remains that for a few hours, her attentions and felicitations buoyed my soul, infused my guts with an effervescence that lifted that little black ball out the pit of my stomach and passed through my nostrils, looking so much like cigarette smoke, that you wouldn?t have been able to tell the difference. IN the short time that we spent together she managed to set me up right and feel as if I am worthy of normal human contact, and that the ship isn?t just a cosmic ruse to take me out of the general population. I was once again actually able to relate to someone else on a level beyond the usual accepted distance you need to maintain with a shipmate, and beyond the cardboard conversations you have with old friends you haven't seen in a long time and really have nothing to talk about; because you already KNOW what each other's favorite book, movie and musician is and beyond that your lives are so very different and disparate now.
And she made me laugh with an honesty that I had forgotten comes along with really enjoying yourself. With really enjoying the company of somebody else.
And when I finally had the good sense to head back to the ship at three AM, I made her blush by kissing her hand before I tottered off into the night. I saw her eye lids flutter and I could swear her mouth wanted to do something, but I am not sure what.
And I know that I probably wont see her again for a long time, and that she has boys dripping off of her at home and she may not even place any import on our night together at all. And that doesn?t matter, because I am not some obsessive freak, but simply and profoundly grateful that she spent the wee hours with me.
And all of yesterday I could smell her perfume through the grease and thinner and burning aluminum. I could smell it despite the noise from the grinder and needle gun and the sawz-all. I could smell it on my shirt, and on my hands and I didn't shower until I woke up this morning and couldn't smell it any more and couldn?t remember if I really had such a good evening with, or if it was another delusional fusion of dream, reality and misinterpretation that makes my life so goddamned interestingly frustrating to figure out.
But then today, in the amusement park where my shipmates and I went to celebrate Christ's resurrection by riding on rollercoasters, I caught a whiff of the same perfume she had been wearing. And I knew that it was all really true, and I felt like I was the one reborn.
And even though I really wasn't in the mood to be out on the town, I found myself in the usual watering hole before I realized that I wasn't headed back to the ship. Happy to be climbing back into a cold mug of Bass, reading the newspaper and picking the least offensive songs on the juke box. Then a flouncy blonde came in and set herself down right next to me when there were stools all around at seven thirty in the PM. I was thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe she was sitting down next to me because she saw something that made her want to talk...Not that I wanted to talk because I wanted to bed a stranger, but because I wanted to feel like there is still something to my grizzled earthly form that would make an attractive stranger want to make my acquaintance. But then, suddenly, she took her drink away and sat down next to an eighty year old who sits at the end of the bar every night and started to talk about how her AA meeting was that night. And I figured that that last bit of Je ne sais quoi had been leeched out of my skin by the salt and the grease and the booze and the nicotine because, certainly, if there was ever a "type" of woman who would be attracted to me it would be a forty seven year-old who rushes into the bar as soon as she is done twelve-stepping for the evening. Resigned to another miserable dreary lonely night of bloating myself with too much beer and a twist of self serving melancholia I resolved to leave as soon as I finished my beer.
And then. And then the surf child came in (hadn't seen him since I returned from New Orleans) and slithered his arms around the blonde's waist. She kissed him. On the mouth. And shortly there after Surf Child noticed me and broke away from drunken blonde. When he approached me she screeched "you know HIM?" Which I ignored as best I could, the subtle way she had snubbed me had already abraded my ego enough for one night. And surf child shot back some witty banter about how I am the most powerful man on the ship and how she should, nay how everybody in the bar should behold the glory that is Max Love! Flattered a mite by his disingenuous puffing on me arse I decided to buy him a beer and catch up on ship's gossip. After a couple, it was time to leave and I stopped to be introduced to drunken blonde. When she told me that she was sorry that she had moved away from me so abruptly but that "I was going to talk to you, but you were just SO into your PAPER! I figured that you must be really DEPRESSED, and I can't take on another charity case right now..." I suppose the real lesson is that chicks don't dig well-read drunks, but I took that as tacit endorsement of my suspicions about my aura. And so I set out to the ship with a bitter taste on my tongue that had less to do with the brand of beer I was drinking, and more to do with the quality of bile churning my guts.
And so. And so I was almost ship-side when the call came in from Blueberry that he was with master chief and his wife and his daughter and they had been waiting fer hours and why the hell wasn't I there? Before I could even digest who was on the line, there was her voice, asking ever so delicately to come take her away from her parents...
So I turned my ass around and headed right on back to the bar where they were listening to that horrid band play covers of jimmy buffet and Otis Redding. Walked up the steps and sat down with the master chief & wife & blueberry (master chief and blueberry are old navy buddies) and I saw the daughter, Supa-K, dancing with a handsome, well built young man. A handsome, well built young man who happened to strike me as quite gay. But then she sat down and he came over with his # and because I felt crushed I realized it was probably for the best because if she wanted to hang out with me I would just make an ass of myself anyway. I have forgotten how to relate to anyone who isn?t part of the crew. I know this. The five of us sat for some time telling jokes and sea stories, slurping strong frozen drinks before supa-k asked to use my phone to call that guy. "I want to go out dancing" she announced. And the compaction of my soul was that much more profound. The only reason that I had headed back out was to meet her, to talk to her, to be in the presence of something beautiful and soft for a few hours to take the edge off of boat life and the attendant brooding alone in the bar.
Next thing I know she comes back to the bar and announces that the guy and his boyfriend were coming to pick her up and bring her to a gay bar to go dancing. And why don't I come with? That last part started a thousand hamsters on a thousand wheels in my brain. Having spent a lot of time in gay bars with my friends back home I had no personal problems with escorting her...But what would Master Chief and blueberry think? "Them Homos" are not highly regarded among merchant marines (but if my shipmates only knew how many shipmates on this boat are queer...) Would they start nasty roumors about me? Would master chief be happy to see his daughter escorted by a shipmate instead of having he out with two strangers? would he think that I was going to take advantage? and on. and on.
I after quick consideration of my thoughts, I told her that I would love to go, if it was OK with her dad. I could see the honest relief in his eyes when he said he would "feel much better about her going out" with me around.
And so, before I knew it I was in an entire gay compound. A hotel out on 66th street completely devoted to being a homosexual resort. The drag show on the courtyard, the bawdy dyke piano bar, the leather bar, the dance club. Of course, being around so many well groomed, buff, fashionable men made me suck in my beer gut and tuck in my shirt as vanity is contagious sometimes. I know I couldn?t pass as gay in an environment like that, I just didn?t want to have people tittering about ?that straight guy over there? if you know what I mean.
And so we danced, the four of us. then the two of us. Then they were back from whatever they were doing and they drove us to the hotel where she was staying. And Supa-K and I talked, for hours. I held her feet in my hands. She nuzzled me with her head. She curled up in my arms. And true to my word, despite a few inadvertent pecks on the top of her head, I didn't make a pass at her, though I know my desire was pungent and hung around my body like the smell of fish guts around a troller (although, at one point, in the club, I did cup one perfect cheek of her derrič²„ out of sheer habit when my arm was around her waist. I didn't even realize what I had done until she reciprocated?)
And so we talked, and she proved herself to be well read and intelligent and ambitious and adventurous and worldly, though she has seen little outside of her Missouri home. And I absolutely went to jelly when she said that ?I?m just a country girl you know.? And I knew better than to admit to myself that I had already fell for her the way you fall for someone before you even know what love really is all about.
And she, weather she was simply being nice and having a good ol' 21 year-old time with me, or if she felt something for me is irrelevant. The fact remains that for a few hours, her attentions and felicitations buoyed my soul, infused my guts with an effervescence that lifted that little black ball out the pit of my stomach and passed through my nostrils, looking so much like cigarette smoke, that you wouldn?t have been able to tell the difference. IN the short time that we spent together she managed to set me up right and feel as if I am worthy of normal human contact, and that the ship isn?t just a cosmic ruse to take me out of the general population. I was once again actually able to relate to someone else on a level beyond the usual accepted distance you need to maintain with a shipmate, and beyond the cardboard conversations you have with old friends you haven't seen in a long time and really have nothing to talk about; because you already KNOW what each other's favorite book, movie and musician is and beyond that your lives are so very different and disparate now.
And she made me laugh with an honesty that I had forgotten comes along with really enjoying yourself. With really enjoying the company of somebody else.
And when I finally had the good sense to head back to the ship at three AM, I made her blush by kissing her hand before I tottered off into the night. I saw her eye lids flutter and I could swear her mouth wanted to do something, but I am not sure what.
And I know that I probably wont see her again for a long time, and that she has boys dripping off of her at home and she may not even place any import on our night together at all. And that doesn?t matter, because I am not some obsessive freak, but simply and profoundly grateful that she spent the wee hours with me.
And all of yesterday I could smell her perfume through the grease and thinner and burning aluminum. I could smell it despite the noise from the grinder and needle gun and the sawz-all. I could smell it on my shirt, and on my hands and I didn't shower until I woke up this morning and couldn't smell it any more and couldn?t remember if I really had such a good evening with, or if it was another delusional fusion of dream, reality and misinterpretation that makes my life so goddamned interestingly frustrating to figure out.
But then today, in the amusement park where my shipmates and I went to celebrate Christ's resurrection by riding on rollercoasters, I caught a whiff of the same perfume she had been wearing. And I knew that it was all really true, and I felt like I was the one reborn.
